Should cars intervene on our behalf to keep us safe?

What you’re partially talking about is adaptive cruise control, Alfa. Nice to use on motorways and especially good for avoiding speed tickets when in built up areas and you’re having to watch both the multiple hazards and the speedo.

One of our Toyotas is fitted with a lot of devices – but the Lidar display which houses many of the sensors sometimes goes into shut down mode on cold days 🙂

Most accidents don’t occur through driver boredom but through driver error, and last year there were 140,086 road traffic accidents in the UK that resulted in personal injury. That works out at almost 12,000 a month, or just under 400 every day. The top five causes:

1. Driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs
2. Tiredness
3. Excessive speed
4. Distraction – mobile ‘phones, changing radio channels.
5. Failure to react to severe weather

Interestingly, fully autonomous cars could cope rather well with all those issues.

Do autonomous cars automatically give you a breath test?

And how do they cope with fog, snow, black ice?

My car is 19 years old so rather lacking in recent modern technology, but it has managed to stay out of trouble so far with me in full control.

Interestingly, there are devices that can be part of your car that do provide breath testing, but the weather is the real reason these developments could be invaluable, since fog won’t provide an impediment to the sensor arrays. Snow could stop them – as it can with any ordinary car, and which is why we have a Toyota 4 x 4 as well, which goes up any snow-clad incline with relative ease – and the black ice question is another reason, really, why the fully autonomous vehicle should be a lot safer, since its in-built accelerometers will detect any slight drifting well before a human driver could react, and correct accordingly.

I’ve always been a technophile, so it’s worth viewing my enthusiasm in that light, and Duncan does make some very sage points about location tracking and even hacking, as cars have been unlocked (but not, as far as I know, actually started) remotely across continental distances.

But the real reasons I await their arrival with great enthusiasm are the freedom they will afford to the disabled in remote areas and the increased safety they should provide for everyone on the roads.

The theory was put forward by a New Scientist columnist who argued that because the full autonomous car would have to be – for all intents and purposes – almost entirely foolproof in safety terms, once people began to be able to identify them as such they would come to realise that the normal rules don’t apply and would simply walk across roads as and when they pleased.

I think it has some merit, in fact. The irony would be that because the fully autonomous vehicle was far safer than the human-controlled, that characteristic would be exploited by the opportunistic.

A bit like teaching your children to drive! We like to think of technology as “foolproof” but it is not. I’d prefer it if we put a lot more effort into public transport rather than individual vehicles that demand more road and parking space. And research into better and lighter electric storage for all vehicles.

I’d like to see a future where the major road users – commuters – no longer have to spend time travelling, wasting time, to places of work by putting work nearer where they live, and using local offices instead of a single headquarters. Get unnecessary traffic off the roads.

While I agree (and wonder, frankly, why more hasn’t been done) about public transport in urban areas, in many rural and mountainous areas in some ways it’s a non-starter. Don’t get me wrong; it exists, but travelling by horse and cart might be slightly speedier.

However, if (as many companies are suggesting) London becomes something of a commercial wasteland following Brexit then the problem might solve itself. Of course, we’ll then have to be caring for the millions unemployed, but I suppose we can’t have everything.

It’s an intractable problem: commerce tends to flock together and everything else follows.

John: yes – that’s the first time I’ve read a seriously concerning issue surrounding autonomous vehicles. What I can see happening is that the first place autonomous systems will be deployed will be in the stopping arena, in part for the very reason you specify. I would imagine that the creators and designers of AVSs (autonomous vehicle Systems) will already have considered this and will have realised that a shunt is a real possibility, so legislation would be needed to amend the Construction and Use regs to enforce mandatory stopping communication systems between all vehicles, and not simply between the AVSs fitted. It’s really the only way the system can work safely.

The one thing at which the UK excels is technical innovation and software. The Government seems very keen to push the areas concerned, so will, I suspect, be only too willing to legislate accordingly.

Of course, we can also dream that one day inertialess braking will become a reality, in which case we can stop dead when necessary.

There are around 26 million vehicles on UK roads, and their average age is 7.8 years. It will be impossible to fit all these vehicles with devices compatible with automated vehicles. We will have to deal with mixed traffic for many years to come, given the increased longevity of vehicles. I’d expect if we do introduce autonomous vehicles they would be restricted to particular areas and probably segregated from “normal” traffic.

That’s also a possibility, but simple figures can be misleading. There are around 31m cars on the road but there’s also around a third of a million HGVs which, together,. move around 75% of goods around the UK, when rail should certainly be moving most. That’s an aside, however, and while I agree that it’s unlikely that retrospective legislation would be enacted for 100% of vehicles it can certainly be enacted for most and auto braking can be retrofitted comparatively cheaply. John was talking about the instance of the HGV specifically, and I would imagine that legislation pertaining to them will be enacted.

Separation by a highways version of air traffic control using GPS is a possibility. LGV’s and delivery vans are increasingly in communication with their operations bases. By 2025 onwards significant progress could be made towards autonomous driving on major motorways. On exit a transponder would switch off the autonomous control and the human driver would regain control. In urban areas one advantage of autonomous driving would be speed control: no more excessive speeds in residential roads or late-night boy racers tearing up the high street. The emergency services would have to have an opt-out.

And think about this – a computer-managed school run with all movements safely coordinated and synchronised! No more late-for-violin lesson anxiety!

Now there’s an offbeat idea…

And no more speed bumps? 🙂

There would be no need for speed bumps, chicanes, and speed cameras. No parking contraventions on the highway. Disabled bays always clear of obstruction. Roundabouts replaced by signals for pedestrians and inter-linked with guided traffic flows. Buses and taxis given priority at junctions and programmed to make turns banned for other traffic. Electric cars could even book their recharge at a charging station en route. When setting off and loading the destination coordinates and preferred arrival time the system would check the whole journey for congestion and delays and plan the route not just by geography as now but by using all relevant data. Platooning would be directed for optimum efficiency and economy. The module in the car would become a slave to the overall system. Fancy, being in the right place, in the right lane, at the right time, at all times; motoring doesn’t get much better than that. It would be satnav in excelsis.

Dream on John. 😴🚗😴🚍😴🚘😴🚋😴🚌😴

Utopia of the future maybe, but we are unlikely to experience it in our lifetimes.

You would not even need anyone in the autonomous car. Just send it on its way to collect the groceries, deliver your report to the office, take granny out for spin. We could just sit on the sofa at home watching the tv channels automatically selected for us by the Data Collection Authority.

In wonder who would be held accountable for accidents when the foolproof technology is fooled?

For this week’s work expedition “up north”, our hire car was a nice comfy Skoda Octavia.

This came with the full “no frills package”, i.e. no satnav, no cruise control, no parking sensors and only a manual handbrake.

I’m really beginning to like those Skodas…

Lovely car, the Octavia. Wish we’d bought one instead of an Audi. One of the few cars with plenty of legroom and comfort in the rear seats plus a vast boot. Our friends’ Jaguar, for all its length, is surprisingly cramped.

Not as good as an Alfa 🙂🙃🙂🙃🙂

…red with matching rust? 😉

Not red and NO rust. That was an optional extra over 20 years ago.

100% agree with you wavechange except I don’t like cruise control and don’t have it on my car anyway.

I find mirrors an essential safety feature.

Mirrors are simple but effective, but the manufacturers want to introduce blind-spot warning systems. Many of us cope well without them. Some cars seem better than others regarding blind-spots so maybe there is a case for copying good design.

I rarely use cruise control as the motorways and other major roads we generally frequent are not good candidates. However, I support blind spot help – overtaking vehicles can surprise you sometimes when they are not quite past; I’ve seen a number of near misses when the vehicle about to be overtaken has started an overtake manoeuvre itself , abruptly abandoned.